


Keeping up Apperances

by gotquiet



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Heistfic, Jealousy, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:11:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9908186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotquiet/pseuds/gotquiet
Summary: Cobb trusts Arthur with his life. Eames he doesn't trust at all. And something is going on between the two of them that will force him to choose which instinct is stronger.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old kinkmeme fill that I'm finally migrating over to Ao3.

There were many things that made Arthur the best. He was exact. Arthur did not make errors. When you needed something from him you got it exactly as specified, and you got it three days before you had been expecting it. He was alert. Cobb had stopped keeping track of the times when Arthur had noticed a detail that lead to some small breakthrough in his research, or, later, had saved an extraction job from collapsing. He owned everything he did with such intensity that it was almost off-putting. It didn't matter if it was the execution of a job, the clothes he was wearing, or the the way he ate his steak. He put everything into it with the self awareness of a zen monk.

After almost ten years of working with Arthur as his immediate superior, Cobb was well aware of all of this. But it wasn't until he was on a plane, running from the law and Mal's ghost, that he realized what made Arthur stand out among all of the other ultra precise, excessively serious men in a precise and serious business.

When the police began investigating Cobb, the company he worked for began rapidly distancing itself from him, and so called friends were suddenly too busy with 'other things' to help him try to hold together what was left of his life, it was Arthur waiting for him on the tarmac when Cobb's plane landed in Berlin. It was Arthur sitting quietly with him at 2AM in the middle of an alien city as Cobb rubbed his face with his palms and slowly worked himself up to the acceptance that he would not be going home again for a very long time, if ever. It was Arthur that found Cobb a place to stay, and Arthur that got him his first extraction job, all while Cobb was still too shell shocked to do much more than nod and follow where he was directed.

Arthur was loyal. The Cobbs had taken a risk in hiring a man with a criminal record so many years ago, and Arthur had repaid their confidence in full many times over. He had kept in contact with his old circles, and used them to introduce Cobb to shady men for whom an indictment of murder was not a deterrent for anything. The first job was terrifying, but successful. The second went more smoothly. By the third the color was coming back into Dom's cheeks and he was starting to become his old demanding self. During the fourth job, a particularly complex piece of work, one of the men that they had been working with spooked the mark away from the extraction site with a badly executed con. They had managed to recover and delivered the stolen information in time, but as the head of the team was handing out the pay Cobb gave his teammate a thorough piece of his mind. The other man looked away with a ratlike sneer and mumbled, “That's a laugh, coming from a man who pushed his wife out a window.”

It was Arthur that dragged Cobb away before he made the title of “murderer” a legitimate one for himself. “You need to get a handle on yourself.” Arthur admonished him as they drove off. “We aren't dealing with professors and lab techs anymore. You make enemies and you're going to get a bullet in the back.”

“Just drive, Arthur.” said Cobb.

Arthur gave Cobb a sidelong glance, but Cobb's expression barred any more conversation, and Arthur shook his head and returned his attention to the road.

\---

It was around that time that Cobb met Eames for the second time. The extractor that had been running their previous jobs had called on Cobb within days of the spat to smooth things over and offer an olive branch in the form of a job lead. The call had been a relief for Cobb. As much as he wanted to throw one of his teammates down a well, he had liked his other associates well enough, and Arthur was right. It wasn't smart to make enemies in a such a small world.

Another extractor was building a team to steal the banking information of a suspected embezzler. Cobb and Arthur were recruited as architect and point, respectively. When they arrived at at their base, a small cabin on the outskirts of Frankfurt, their extractor was waiting for them on the porch along with the final member of their team.

“My name is Joseph, and this is Eames. He's going to be doing some forging for this job.” Joseph was a short, older man who seemed to have a habit of scratching his nose incessantly, but he was warm enough, and shook Cobb's hand with both of his own.

When it was Eames' turn for the niceties he sauntered up to Cobb and extended his hand with a puckish grin. “Pleasure.”

“Eames is it? I remember you telling me your name was Riely back at the PASIV conference.”

Eames' lip twitched. “Ah, you remember that do you?”

Before Cobb could press him Eames turned to Arthur. “Pleasure to see you again as well. Arthur, am I right?”

Cobb could have sworn that there was mirth in Arthur's smile as he replied. “You are right, Mr. Eames. The pleasure is mine.”

“Well then,” said Joseph. “Shall we begin?”

By this time Cobb understood the general process of extraction, but he had not yet had a chance to see a forger in action. “It's a con like any other,” said Eames as the two of them were relaxing behind the cabin. “The trick is twofold. You have to con a part of yourself into believing that you are who you want to be, and you have to tailor your projection of yourself to the mark. It doesn't matter if you know more about the person you are faking than his own mother. What is important is that you behave the way the mark expects you to behave, and that means diverging from reality on occasion.”

“It seems simple enough, but so few people can do it.”

Eames shrugged. “Have you ever tried your hand at acting?”

“I can't say that I have.”

“Well, we all have the potential to be amazing actors, but to do well you have to both let go completely and grab a hold of something deep and essential inside. It's a delicate balance to strike, and not many people manage it.”

“Arthur tried once.”

Eames barked out a laugh. “Did he? Who'd he go for?”

It had been a research project. The Cobbs and Arthur had all tried their hands at changing their appearance within the dream. When it was Arthur's turn he had given his choice some thought, and then, with a self amused smile, said, “How about Clint Eastwood?” He couldn't make the face without struggling against his laughter and decided to try John Wayne, which failed even more spectacularly. That was when Cobb learned that Arthur had a thing for Westerns. He recalled the whole story to Eames. The memory of it brought him back to a better time, when Mal was by his side, and his relationship with Arthur was not constantly being assaulted by the silence that had settled into the space where his dead wife had been.

“Mal got the closest.” Dom continued. “She chose something more generic. A nice cowgirl, for Arthur, she said, but it didn't last past a change in hair color and a strange sense around her person. The force of her own personality just kept shining through.”

Eames said nothing, just smiled in a way that seemed to say, “I understand.”

There was a soreness growing in Dom's throat as he talked. If he had been talking with Arthur he would have said something gruff and moved the conversation on, but Eames' expression, that curious and unimposing smile, seemed to welcome him to continue.

“She said it was just as well that her deception didn't stick. She wanted to be no one but herself.”

“It sounds like she was an amazing woman.” Eames offered.

“There was no one like her.”

The two of them fell into amicable silence for a while, Cobb considering the past, and Eames considering him. Cobb hadn't really talked about Mal to anyone since it had happened. The urge to tell Eames about the honeymoon they had spent in Florida, the way she liked her coffee (tar black), how it had felt to see her body slipping off the window ledge, was almost unbearable. Instead he said, “Have you ever been in love, Eames?”

Eames smiled and turned his attention to the forest beyond the porch. “That sort of thing is difficult for people like us.”

“The relationship maybe. But the feeling?”

“When one lies for a living trust becomes an issue.”

Dom thought back to his last moments in limbo. Mal's face had filled his vision. Her eyes were wide and her features tense with fear as she gripped his hands like they were branches in a flood. At the moment the train reached them, had she truly believed that they would emerge on the other side?

He closed his eyes. “Love means risking that trust.”

When he opened them again Eames had gotten up and was heading back inside. The door to the porch was open and Arthur was leaning out. “Dinner's ready,” he said, and disappeared back inside. Eames paused with his hand propping open the door.

“To answer your question Mr. Cobb, there has been a time when I thought I was in love.”

“You thought?” asked Cobb, but Eames was already gone.

Cobb got to see Eames in action for the first time during the dry run of their extraction. Arthur had uncovered that the mark was obsessed with old spy movies and cold war espionage, so Cobb had constructed an environment that recalled Communist Germany. Eames was going to approach the mark as the man their client suspected (and Arthur confirmed) was serving as a middleman in the embezzlement, and sell the mark some story about a vast communist conspiracy and “We need you, Mr. Schultz,” and so on and so forth. Arthur was cast to play the “vague threat,” which Joseph said he would be able to sell no problem without forgery. “He does look a bit like a spook, doesn't he?” Said Eames.

“I'm much scarier than a government man, Mr. Eames,” retorted Arthur.

Eames widened his eyes and gave a little fearful shake before slipping back into his usual relaxed smile. Arthur shot Cobb a suffering look, but Cobb could only grin back.

“Yes, anyway,” said Joseph, “You will convince him that the secret police are watching him closely and will move in soon. Eames will tell our man to withdraw his sensitive documents from safekeeping so that they can be moved. Cobb has recreated a room similar to the vault where Mr. Schultz is holding his embezzled funds. He will be brought before a safe and will be convinced to open it with his account information. Cobb, you will pose as an employee of the bank. I will keep an eye on everything from the operation room. Shall we take a look at your level now?”

\---

Cobb found himself behind the counter of the bank he had designed, listening as a man in front of him talked at length about having to cash a check from his brother into his fathers' account and could that be done? It took him only a moment to orient himself in the dream, and with a smile he took the projection's paperwork and started going through the motions of the transaction. He handed the man a small slip indicating that the deposit had been successful, and asked, “Will that be all?”

“You wouldn't have a clue about where the others were, would you?”

Dom inspected the man standing in front of him again. He was older, with specks of white flecked through his close cropped blond hair, and a thin, angular face that framed a suddenly very familiar smile.

“Eames?”

“Cobb.”

And suddenly Eames was in front of him, slouching forward in his fine suit. The projections in the building hadn't so much as flinched as Eames had changed. Cobb was impressed. “Break time, yeah? Time to find Joseph.”

Joseph and Arthur were waiting for them in a small cafe on the corner of the block. The entire level was overshadowed by oppressive cloud cover, giving everything a drab, washed out appearance. Even the flowers on the table in front of them looked like they were struggling through a technicolor filter.

Joseph looked around the street, impressed. “Your man certainly knows how to set the mood, Mr. Cobb. How was the bank? Arthur has the layout down?”

“Everything is perfect, as usual.” Arthur smiled, and Joseph nodded, satisfied.

“Then we will perform the extraction tomorrow.”

\---

Cobb shot up in bed soaked in sweat and tingling with the numbness of a fading nightmare. He hadn't been dreaming, or if he had he couldn't remember a thing, but the terror was still there, and he immediately started groping for the totem hidden under his pillow. The brush of cool metal against his fingertips settled him enough to come down from the panic and notice the light seeping in under his door and the muffled voices behind it. He checked his clock. It was 3AM in the morning. The team would have to be setting out for Frankfurt at 6AM to prepare the dentist's office where the extraction would take place. Dom clutched the top and pressed the edge of it into his palm hard enough that he could feel it almost pierce the skin, and then snuck out of his bed and pressed his ear to the door.

The people talking were speaking in low mumbles, but their voices were immediately recognizable as Arthur and Eames.

“Nevermind that he's more wanted than you or I ever were,” Eames was saying, “But what sort of life do you expect to have with a man who's pining for the impossible?”

“It's only been a couple of months, Eames. Let the man grieve.”

“And how long do you expect to wait?”

The silence after lasted so long that Dom wondered if they hadn't moved away, but just as he was turning back to bed for a few more hours sleep Eames spoke again.

“Do you think he's telling the truth when he says she jumped?”

Arthur's response came before Eames had even finished the question. “Of course he is. You didn't know her. You didn't know them. Whatever happened in limbo, it changed her completely.”

“And Cobb?”

This time the answer was longer in coming. “It changed him too. He won't talk to me about it.”

“He gives you nothing and you follow him around like a dog.”

Anger flared up deep inside Cobb. What right did Eames, who had known them for all of two days, have to pass judgment on them like that? Mal's top bit into the crease of his palm and he placed a hand on the doorknob. Arthur wasn't responding. Cobb was waiting for a “Fuck off,” or “This is none of your business,” or something else in character with his intensely private partner, but there was nothing, just silence. Eventually Eames took up the conversation again.

“Well, at least you're happy, right Arthur?”

This time the “Fuck off” did come, and it was loud enough that Dom jumped from the shock of it. The other men must have realized how loud they had gotten as well, because there was a quiet shuffling of furniture, and Eames said something too quiet for Cobb to hear before his footfalls faded out of the kitchen and the soft patan of a door announced his departure. Cobb waited a whole five minutes before pocketing his totem and stepping out into the kitchen.

Arthur was still there, his hands wrapped around a glass of water, still full, on the table. He was shirtless and dressed in loose grey sweatpants, his only concession to the bite of the nighttime chill. He gave Dom a curious rise of the brow as he came in and filled his own glass with water from the tap, taking his time to put his thoughts in order. It was likely that Eames had his ear pressed to the door just as Cobb had done, and Cobb's previous affection for the forger had dissolved completely with the conversation he had just been privy to. The urge to face Eames' door and say loudly, “Mind your own fucking business,” was only quashed by the understanding that they had a job to do in a few hours, and Cobb was not going to be the one to compromise it. He sat across from Arthur, took a sip from his glass, set it down, and contemplated the thick silence that had become so familiar between them. Arthur did not ask questions that didn't need asking. That was part of what made him the best. People knew he was discreet, and they knew that he was professional. Just once, Cobb thought, he'd like to see Arthur break out of that control and submit to impulse. Cobb did not consider himself an indecisive person, but at that moment, with Arthur watching him expectantly, and not knowing what it was he was expecting, he found the words he had prepared drying up in his throat. Nervous, he took another sip of water and slouched into his chair.

“Are you all right?” asked Arthur finally.

He was scrutinizing him. The lines on his forehead were pronounced as he frowned in the intense way that had made Cobb uneasy when they had first started working with each other. Later on Cobb had realized that this face was nothing more than a mask Arthur put on when he was protecting some soft part of himself. He had seen it in spades since Mal's death, but it always came out when Arthur was negotiating with an employer, or executing a con to put the mark under. And now he was using it on Cobb, as if after years of association with each other it would fool him.

“I'm fine,” said Cobb. “Can't really sleep.”

Arthur's expression softened. “We've been at this full tilt for a while now. We have the funds. We can take a break after this, let things cool down.”

The conversation was quickly veering off into a direction Cobb had not prepared for. “No, it's fine. Look, I... I've been meaning to say...”

What he had been meaning to say was, “Thank you,” but what came out was, “You don't need to be doing this for me.”

And then the mask was up again. “It's as much for myself as for you. We both need the work. And you're an excellent architect.”

“You aren't riding my coattails, Arthur.”

Cobb was almost thankful for the annoyed smirk that crept through at that. “Trust me. I know my own value.”

“Then you also know that you've been very generous to me since this all started.”

“What are you getting at Cobb?”

“I'm just trying to say thank you, that's all.”

Arthur just shook his head. Don't be stupid, his look said. Cobb leaned forward, determined to get the point across. “I mean it. It meant a lot to me that you didn't leave when everyone else did.”

Arthur was still shaking his head, still annoyed. “Whatever you heard Eames say-”

“This has nothing to do with Eames.”

“He's just jealous.”

That gave Dom pause. “Jealous?”

“Extraction is a lonely business. People get together for jobs and then they disappear on each other for months. Backstabbers and sellouts are a part of the territory. Eames just doesn't like it when someone has something he doesn't. That's all.”

“You seem to know a lot about Eames.”

Arthur shrugged. “He's an easy read.”

Cobb would have said that out of everyone they had worked with up until then, Eames was the most difficult to put a finger on, but Arthur had made his observation matter-of-fact, and Cobb didn't press it. “I just wanted there to be no question,” he said.

“There isn't any. I'm not going to let a meathead with crooked teeth critique the choices I've made for myself. And you don't have to defend yourself from him.”

For some reason Arthur's light insult of Eames gave Cobb more peace of mind than anything else had. There had been something about the way the two men had been talking to each other beyond the fact that the conversation had been about Cobb that had stirred a juvenile sort of anger in his gut. But now, with Arthur sitting there across from him, all business and severity even with a bare chest and mussed hair, telling Dom that he was being silly, Dom felt that he -was- being silly. He had felt threatened before, and now he wondered when he had gotten so insecure. It helped that he imagined Eames with his ear pressed to his door, fuming.

“Is something funny?” Arthur asked.

Cobb willed his smile down and shook his head. He stood up and made for his room. “You should get to sleep. We have a hard days work ahead.”

“We'll be fine.”

Yes, Cobb thought, we will.

\---

The job did not go exactly as planed. Schultz turned out to be one of the most gullible people on the planet. Either that or he had had fantastical dreams about being a secret agent many times before, because he didn't blink an eye when Eames sold him the schpiel about needing to move secret documents before the communists got them. Arthur being creepy in the shadow of an alleyway was practically overkill. He almost beat Eames to the bank, and when he got there he started adding lines that were definitely _not_ a part of the script. He leaned leaned over the counter, looking all the world like a 10 year old playing cops and robbers, and hissed at Cobb, “I need your help.”

“What can I do for you sir?” asked Cobb.

Schultz nudged his head towards Eames, who was standing back from the tellers, patiently waiting for Schultz to conduct his business. “I need to talk to you about my account, privately.”

“Of course,” Cobb replied, and led Schultz towards the small consulting room nearby. Eames moved to follow, but Schultz held up a hand to stop him.

“Wait here and watch for our friend, ok?” said Schultz.

“I don't think he'll be following us in here,” replied Eames.

“Just wait, would you?” The tense, barely frantic way Schultz snapped back made Eames pull back. He flashed a glance at Cobb before shrugging.

Once they were in the room and the door was closed behind them, Schultz refused to take a seat and started pacing. “I need your help,” he said again. They had three hours in the dream and barely half an hour had passed. Cobb had time to be patient.

“That's what I'm here for,” said Cobb. “Now what do you need?”

“That man outside? He is a communist agent. He is trying to get at the operative list I have been keeping safe here. We need to get rid of him.”

This was not a part of the plan at all. Eames was supposed to be accepted as a concerned friend and fellow anti-communist, not some double agent. In none of the prior extractions had the mark gone so wildly off script. Schultz was looking at Dom expectantly, and for the moment Dom could think of nothing except that the lurch of panic in his gut was probably translating into a believable expression of surprise for a man suddenly confronted with a situation out of a James Bond movie.

“Are you sure?” he stalled.

“Yes, yes. I've worked with him for a very long time. He is a sneak. A thief. He must be a communist agent. The more I think about it the more it make sense. What communist spy lets himself be caught snooping in an alley like that? It's too neat. Him and that man he pointed out to me, they are in cahoots. They are trying to flush the documents from here. You must help me, as a good German. You must call the police!”

Cobb's mind was racing now. The important thing was getting Schultz' account information. Whether or not they got it the way they had planned was inconsequential. He'd just have to improvise.

“Alright,” Cobb said, “but they will know you're on to them if you just refuse to go along.”

Schultz rubbed his chin vigorously. “Of course you are right, but we can't let them get their hands on those documents.” His eyes lit up. “We will have to kill them. We will lead them somewhere and shoot them. Your guard has a gun, doesn't he?”

“No, that won't work. You'll be in trouble and the communists will still be after the information. We need to make them think they got what they want. We can give them false documents and then when they act on the information we have them trapped.”

“Yes, yes!” Schultz was practically shouting. Cobb could see Eames through the window, keeping a disinterested distance but watching everything with a look of supreme concentration. “We will give them fake papers, and lead them into a trap. You must type of a fake list for me. Agent names and aliases, and their locations.” Schultz took a pad of paper from the desk and started scribbling on it. He handed the note to Cobb. On it was written a series of numbers. “I will stall my friend there. Plant the fake list in my deposit box, and when you are ready come down and we will all go up and make a show of withdrawing the fake list. Can you do this for me?”

Cobb nodded. Schultz shook himself like he was preparing to charge into war, took a deep breath, and settled into a determined expression that would have been comical if the job wasn't still on the line.

After taking another minute to steel himself up, Schultz marched out of the counseling room and started giving Eames a long winded excuse about procedure while Cobb slipped off to the back, broke into jog as soon as he was out of eyesight, and tested the numbers Schultz had given him on the vault. With a hiss of escaping pressure the door swung open to reveal a manila envelope. The envelope was nothing more than a prop from Arthur's mind. It was the information that would open the safe that they were after. Cobb committed the account information Schultz had so enthusiastically given him to memory, allowed himself a smile for having the job complete before the con was even fully executed, and then strode back down to meet the mark and Eames.

Later, after the money had been split and the team was relaxing in a cafe, a real one this time, Cobb explained what had happened. They all had a good laugh about it, and Eames said, in a voice a little too sincere to be all jest, “Thank you for not taking the opportunity to have me shot.”

“Contrary to what you may have heard, I'm not a violent man,” was Cobb's reply.

And this was true. Cobb was not a violent man by nature. Neither was he a criminal. He had fallen into extraction due to the circumstances of his situation and accepted it as a means to an end, but he tried to maintain at least some moral boundaries. Killing was one of those boundaries.

It turned out that Arthur had no such moral hangups. Cobb discovered this in Buenos Aires. He and Arthur had split up after the Schultz job, Arthur to touch base back in America, and Cobb to drop off radar for a while and dedicate some time to plotting his return home. One month later they reconnected at a cafe at the edge of a slum that smelt of strong coffee and rubbish and plotted their next move. They shook hands and made small talk as the coffee was brought out to them, until Arthur asked, “So, how long have they been tailing you?”

If this had been a few months earlier, Cobb would have reacted and given them away, but he was a quick learner. He took a sip of his coffee and said, “You noticed before I did.”

“Any guesses on who they are?”

Cobb scanned the crowd the way any people watching cafe patron might. No one stood out to him as a tail, but there was no question in Arthur's voice. “None whatsoever,” was his reply.

They moved on with the conversation.

“How were the kids?”

“Fine, they asked all about you. I told them you were busy at work.”

“How was the mother in law?”

“She called me a criminal and said she never wanted me to show my face near your children again.”

“She knows you too well, Arthur.”

Arthur smirked. He handed Cobb a piece of construction paper. “James wanted me to give this to you.” It was a picture, drawn in technicolor crayon. There were four wobbly figures in various shades of red, standing in a lime green scribble. Three were tall. One was short. They were all holding hands in a line, the quintessential family portrait. Cobb brushed his hands against the lines of wax, imagining James as he drew, his hand clutching the crayon like it was the handle of a mallet, eyes tight in a squint of concentration as he dragged a line down the paper. At that moment Cobb was ready to risk arrest, immigration be damned. He wanted to be home, with his children, being the father he needed to be for them. He looked up. Arthur was picking at a jelly roll and frowning at the jam inside as if it had committed some personal slight against him. He always did know when to give a man his space, Cobb thought. He spared another look at the portrait, lingering at the squiggle with the halo of brown that could only represent Mal's beautiful hair, and then tucked the paper into his jacket pocket.

“Well, it's been a nice vacation, but it's time to get back to work.”

Arthur's attention was immediately on him again. “You have a job?”

“Our first job is getting out of Buenos Aires. I'll meet you at the safe house.”

Arthur nodded, pushed his jelly roll away with more vigor than was necessary, and shook Cobb's hand.

The safe house Cobb had been living in for the past month was little more than a hallowed out building he had scared a few local drifters out of. It jut out of the slums and into a portion of the city where the walls were made of something more sturdy than tin and the alleys were paved. Cobb made his way through the streets on his usual route, trying to pace himself and willing his body to relax and not cast glances over his shoulder every other second. He reached the alley leading to the entrance of the safe house, and was halfway to the door when he heard a slam and a grunt behind him.

Arthur had been waiting in a cross street, and as their tail was passing he had body slammed him into the wall. The man struggled, but Cobb was right there a moment later, and there was little their unwanted guest could do but be dragged into the safe house.

A gun came out of somewhere under Arthur's jacket. The man who had been following Cobb was pushed to his knees, one arm held at an awkward angle behind his back by Arthur's free hand. He was shaking visibly, and his eyes were cast down to the floor in a submissive gesture.

“Who sent you to follow me?” Cobb asked.

When the man said nothing Cobb glanced at Arthur. A shift in weight was all it took and the tail was screaming, his shoulder on the verge of popping out of its socket. Arthur eased up and Cobb tried again.

“Tell us and you'll walk out of here alive.”

“I...I don't know.”

Arthur shifted again, just enough to make the man under him squirm.

“I don't know!” he repeated, frantic. “He gave... OW! He... he gave me a thousand pesos and... and he said to follow you and tell him where you went. That's it. I swear to the Virgin Mother I don't know anything!”

“Where did he tell you to meet him?”

“Where he... ah! Where he found me! Café El Chancho Feliz. I meet him tonight. I don't know nothing else!”

There was a bottle of sedative on the crate nearby. Dom filled a needle with some. At the sight of it the man tried to rip himself away from Arthur, but all it got him was his face planted into the dust and Arthur's knee digging into the back of his neck.

“Did your contact give you a name?”

“No, please!”

Cobb knelt and put the syringe in their captive's field of vision. “How about a description?”

“I don't,” the man started to say, but Arthur let the muzzle of his gun graze against his ear and the denial melted into sobbing babble. Cobb gave Arthur a pointed frown and Arthur pulled back.

“One more time. Who told you to follow me?”

“He... he was white... black hair... big shoulders... very rough voice American accent I don't I don't wait! Wait! I have a child!”

“You should have thought about that before you started snooping around dangerous men,” admonished Arthur as Cobb plunged the needle into the other man's forearm. Within a minute he had gone limp and they dragged him to the bed. Cobb started setting up the PASIV.

“Go under, build something simple, some expat cafe in the city. Try to see if he leads you to his employer. You've got ten minutes.”

Arthur hooked himself up to the PASIV without comment and then settled against the side of the bed. Cobb hooked up the subject. “Ten minutes, and then we need to disappear.”

Arthur rolled his shoulders and let his head rest against the mattress behind him. “Do it.”

Ten minutes later Cobb was checking the subject's pulse as Arthur packed up the room for their departure.

“Did you get it?”

“Yeah, I recognized a projection. Name's Ozman. He's your standard corporate bounty hunter. Works with energy clients mostly.”

“Any idea why he's tracking us?”

Arthur shrugged. “Someone wants to offer you a job? How about you walk up to him and ask?”

Cobb grabbed the few clothes he had brought with him and started stuffing them into his duffel. “This is why I don't pay you to do the plotting.”

Arthur was smirking, but he graced Cobb with a huff none the less.

Everything was packed, and their tail was still sleeping soundly on the bed. Cobb held out his hand. “Give me your hotel keys. I'll hole up there. Will Ozman recognize you?”

“Doubt it.”

“Find him and trail him. See if we can't turn the tables here, but don't push it. If it looks hairy just pull back and we'll worry about it once we're out of the country. And we'll need new papers. Who knows how they tracked us here.”

Arthur handed over his keys and set the PASIV next to Cobb's feet. “On it. What do you want done with him?” He jerked his head towards the man sleeping on the bed.

“He's probably got another three hours left on that sedative. We'll let him sleep through it and by the time he wakes up we'll be long gone. Hopefully he's realized his mistake in getting messed up with this.”

Arthur frowned. “Not smart, Cobb. If he contacts Ozman he could move before we're ready for him.”

“Then we'll get ready for him fast.”

Arthur shook his head and Dom steeled himself for a fight. Arthur wouldn't be happy without a guarantee, and a guarantee was impossible short of murder.

“Let me take care of the tail.” said Arthur, his voice low and steady.

“No.”

“We let him go and we're baring our necks. This is an unnecessary risk.”

Cobb stared Arthur down and pushed into his space until he could feel his point man's breath on his face. “Don't argue with me on this. There has been enough compromise and this is where I draw the line. You do not kill a man in cold blood and continue to call yourself my associate. Do you understand?”

“He's a threat, Cobb.”

Cobb thrust his finger in to Arthur's chest. “Do. You. Understand.”

Arthur scowled back, his entire body taut and ready for a fight. For a moment it seemed that this was it, that after everything he had put up with Cobb's refusal to let go of this one last speck of morality was going to be what drove him off. But Arthur turned away and gave up his ground. Cobb exhaled and gathered up the PASIV along with his luggage. As much as Arthur might complain, once he accepted a plan of action he carried it out to the letter.

“Is 5 hours enough?”

“Should be.”

“If you aren't at the hotel by then I'll assume you're dead.”

Arthur nodded. “All right. Try not to get followed this time. Not every tail is this stupid.”

\---

Four hours later there was a knock at the hotel door. Arthur was visible through the peep hole, and standing behind him was Eames. When Cobb let them in Eames lifted a bag in his hands by way of some sort of explanation.

“He's here to make your documents,” said Arthur.

“I wasn't aware that you were in Buenos Aires,” said Cobb.

Eames gave him a sardonic smile. “And that is why you have Arthur.”

He set his bag onto the bed and started pulling out materials. A small printer, papers, inks, glue, a camera. The bed was slowly filling up with tools of the forger's trade. As he set up, Arthur briefed Cobb on what he had ferreted out during recon.

“I've got the apartment Ozman is holed up in. I can plant a bug, see if I can't catch him giving something up, but he's a professional. He's not going to be leaving anything lying around. He did stop at one point and discuss something with a young lady I know has run intel for extraction teams before, so this could be something big.”

“Then we get out fast.”

Arthur nodded. He had settled into the only chair in the hotel room, his notebook in hand and toes pushing off from the floor so that the chair was in constant risk of tipping.

“How soon can we get those papers Eames?”

“Noon tomorrow, I'd say.”

“Then I'll book a flight for that evening. Where to?”

“South East Asia,” said Cobb.

“Malaysia is very nice this time of year. Good choice,” commented Eames. He was pulling out chunks of metal that looked like they were likely to fit together in some way or another.

Arthur curled his nose. “Malaysia is a bog.”

“Hmm. If only your opinion mattered, Arthur.”

Cobb was not sure what to make of what he was seeing. Arthur was glaring at Eames with open irritation. Eames was pulling out the last of his tools, his back still to Arthur, as he hummed out some indistinguishable tune. There was something in the air that made Cobb feel like he was standing too close to a live wire.

“Is there a problem here?”

Eames turned around a gave Cobb a smile he had seen Philipa use whenever she got caught shoving James down or stealing his toy. “None at all. Arthur told me about your tail, by the way.”

It was not like Arthur to run his mouth on anything that was not essential to the task at hand. Had he wanted to kill the man that badly? Cobb looked at his point man in irritation and Arthur shrugged.

“That's going to bite you in the ass. Mark my words,” continued Eames.

“Forgive me for not wanting to shoot a man in cold blood.”

Eames sniffed and looked at Cobb like he was dealing with a small child. “You're going to have to grow up if you want to work in our world, love.”

What the hell was this? Eames comes out of nowhere and starts lecturing him on the merits of murder, and Arthur, who is nothing if not paranoid, accepts that a forger has dropped out of the sky just for them, just when they needed him? There was something off. Cobb could feel it in his gut. But rather than betray his suspicions, he simply replied in as disinterested a voice as he could muster, “I seem to be doing well enough.”

“Because you have Arthur.”

The front of Arthur's chair came down onto the floor with a wooden clatter and Arthur stood up, snapped out, “Can we focus here?” and Eames picked up his camera, all business and professionalism again.

“Right then. Give me a smile, Cobb.”

\---

It was agreed that Cobb would stay the night in the hotel room next door while Eames did his work in Arthur's room. (“So if an assassin stops by tonight they will find themselves dealing with very dangerous men,” Eames had explained.) Arthur had been recruited to be Eames' assistant. He had accepted this without comment, but the way he had pointedly ignored Eames after their little whatever it was and completely dropped out of the conversation lingered in Cobb's mind. Maybe he was as suspicious as Cobb was of Eames' convenient timing. As long as Arthur was keeping an eye on him Cobb was unconcerned about the possibility that Eames would try to pull something over on them, but he knew something was going on, and until he knew what it was he wasn't going to be able to relax.

Not that he would have been able to relax even without Eames miraculously popping up. The paranoia that had been percolating in Cobb's mind ever since he had become a fugitive had spiked the second Arthur had mentioned the tail, and it showed no sign of settling. He spun Mal's top compulsively. Once. Twice. Again. The top faltered and clattered until there was no way to convince himself that this was a nightmare. He wasn't dreaming. This was what his life had become. No nightmare could cause him as much suffering as this reality, Cobb thought. His mind turned to the PASIV. When he had been with Arthur fear of detection had kept him from resorting to the device for sleep, but alone in Buenos Aries he had developed an honest to God addiction to it. The desire to go under now, to rest and see Mal again, even if it was a false respite, was overwhelming.

His hand was on the case when he heard a thump on the other side of the wall between Arthur's room and his. Cobb froze, body rigid and ears straining for some clue as to what he had just heard. Maybe something had just been dropped. Of course that was it. He was too tense. It was probably nothing. He was willing himself to settle down when there was a loud clatter and a thud and Cobb was in the hall and throwing open the door to Arthur's room, his heart pounding, prepared to throw himself at whatever intruders he found there.

What he found was Eames, on his back and bent against the small desk, and Arthur, clutching his lapels and pinning him there. Both men looked flushed, like they had been struggling, but the second they registered that Cobb had come in they were up and away from each other, Eames straightening his shirt and smirking like the cat that caught the canary, and Arthur looking contrite and saying Cobb's name like it was an explanation.

Well it wasn't an explanation, but by the time the night was over Cobb was going to have one. He shot Eames a hostile expression and pointed at Arthur.

“You. Come with me.”

Arthur followed silently, leaving Eames to gloat in the hotel room by himself. Cobb didn't like leaving Eames alone, not when he didn't know what part he was playing in the predicament Cobb had found himself in, but he was taking a calculated risk. It would only be a few minutes anyway, and he wasn't paranoid enough to think that Eames would try to pull something in that amount of time. Not yet, anyway. So he walked away, and Arthur followed, until they had reached the end of the hall and pushed into the stairwell.

Cobb waited until the door was closed behind him and Arthur was meeting his eyes before asking, “How long have you two known each other?”

The surprised look Arthur flashed him bordered on insulting. The poker face that quickly replaced it crossed that boundary immediately, and Cobb felt what patience he had left fall away.

“What do you mean?” asked Arthur.

“I'm not an idiot Arthur. I know you, I know how you are, don't I?”

The chagrined look Arthur had been giving him in the hotel room was back, and he nodded.

“Then don't insult my intelligence. Eames is a handful, but he isn't the biggest asshole we've had to deal with. Either he has something on you that is causing a problem, or there's some bad blood between you that didn't just develop from one job and a night of argument.”

Arthur considered a moment, mulling over his options, before saying, “I've known him a while.”

“Define, 'a while.'”

“I knew him before I met you.”

Cobb considered this information. It wasn't anything he hadn't figured out by himself. If Arthur knew Eames at all it was likely that their association had been back when Arthur was at the height of his criminal career, before his arrest. Confirmation was what he wanted, but it wasn't like Arthur to be vague when he could pinpoint a fact. If he pressed, Cobb probably would be able to wrestle something more specific out of him, but the tightness of the other man's jaw told him that more prying wouldn't be appreciated. The choice was to demand specificity and feel some control over the situation again, or to let Arthur go and put his trust in a man who had until this very moment never withheld a thing from Cobb.

“I need your assurance that this isn't going to be a problem.”

“It won't be.”

“It looked like it was about to be a problem when I stepped in.”

“I was just putting him in his place.”

The way Arthur said it made Cobb narrow his eyes. There was something about the tone, something that skirted past satisfied into something else, that Cobb couldn't place, but he had Arthur's assurance, and that was enough for him. It had to be enough. He needed to be able to trust someone, God damn it.

Cobb nodded and Arthur became visibly more relaxed.

“Go get some sleep in the other room. I'll help Eames from now on.”

Arthur frowned, as if he was about to argue the point, but then he shrugged and turned back to the door.

Eames was even less enthusiastic about the change in job assignments than Arthur was when Cobb explained to him why he was the only one returning to their makeshift lab. He asked Cobb how much experience he had in forgery, and when the answer was none let out a huff of annoyance and pulled out a wad of pesos.

“Then get me some coffee, would you?”

The reek of chemicals wafting out of the bathroom was already making Cobb sick, so he chose to ignore the insult in Eames' suggestion and took the money. It would give him a chance to order his thoughts anyway.

Arthur had never lied to him before. He had been evasive, sure, had flat out said he wouldn't discuss certain things, particularly where his past was involved, but even in that he was more often than not brutally honest. Now that Cobb thought about it, he couldn't pinpoint what Arthur had done that made his concealment of his connection with Eames a lie, per se, but that sharp feeling of betrayal was still there. Arthur and Eames had spoken like they barely knew each other in Munich, and it was obvious to Cobb now that this was intentional. What Cobb still didn't know was why.

He was mulling it all over, replaying every moment between the two in his head, as he ordered a few cups of coffee from the cafe down the street. It had become his job to suss out secrets and detect lies. He had learned to let his instinct guide him, and his instinct was telling him that this wasn't a simple case of mutual dislike. But Arthur had never mentioned a man like Eames before. He had produced a list of people that were not to be associated with under any circumstances almost as soon as they had started working underground, and Eames had not been on it. And when Cobb said that they needed papers, Arthur had gone to Eames. So Arthur was keeping tabs on Eames, or Eames had made himself known to Arthur, or maybe they had come into Buenos Aires together.

But that was ridiculous.

Cobb was working the problem out as methodically as he could, moving slowly down the street to buy himself time, when the hair on the back of his neck prickled up and a sensation that reminded him of being in the crosshairs of projections tingled through his skin. He picked up his pace. The hotel was only a few buildings down when a sleek black town car with tinted windows rolled up along side him. The other people in the street were giving him a wide berth, Cobb realized, and he caught a man on a doorstep glance nervously to a place behind Cobb's back.

The coffee spilled against his pant leg as Cobb made a dash for the hotel entrance. There was a curse behind him, and he could hear the heavy footfalls of someone dashing at him but he couldn't turn back to see. He had to get to the hotel.

He had only gone a few feet when the town car swerved onto the pavement and came to a screeching halt in front of him. Cobb slammed into the hood, tried to roll away and gain his momentum back, but another body slammed into him from behind. Cobb spun, throwing out his elbow and making contact with something hard. There was a satisfying grunt as the weight of his pursuer disappeared, but a second man was on top of him immediately, grabbing his arms and dragging him towards the now open car door. The man he had hit had already recovered, and now both of them were manhandling him backwards and there was nothing to be done but struggle and shout out Arthur's name and hope to God that his point man hadn't actually listened to his order and gone to sleep. Cobb struggled every inch of the way, cursing and yelling nonsense at the top of his lungs, until his head was slammed against the car top and he was thrown, dazed and bleeding from the nose, into the back of the car.

When Cobb looked up from where his face had landed in the cushion he found himself face to face with the business end of a colt handgun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things have gone from bad to worse for Cobb. With his life on the line he learns something about himself, and something about Arthur.

“Mr. Cobb.”

Cobb forced himself to turn his attention away from the gun and focus on the man behind it. He was large, built like it was his job to fill every inch of the back seat with his bulk. His curly black hair sat like a wet mop atop his head and he smiled down at Cobb with a lazy turn of the mouth.

“Please relax. We don't want you to get hurt.”

Too late for that, Cobb thought. A dull ache was throbbing in his nose and he touched his hand to it. He could feel the blood slicking under his fingers and taste it pooling about his lips. The man in the back seat motioned for Cobb to sit up, and Cobb obeyed. There was nothing else to do at this point. Not until some opportunity presented itself. Cobb glanced out the window. The car was moving through the street now, and it seemed imperative that Cobb take advantage of the fact that his abductors did not see fit to blindfold him and memorize the route. They were driving towards the downtown district. Stone and tin were giving way to steel and the broad concrete of pedestrian friendly roadways, until Cobb caught the glimmer of the ocean horizon down a cross street.

The man sitting next to Cobb had settled his gun down to his side. He was lounging in his seat and facing forward, but the gun was still pointed at Cobb's gut, and when he caught Cobb looking at it he flashed a toothy smile that cut through Cobb like a cold knife. Think of Philipa, he told himself. Think of James. He was going to get through this. They took a turn and were at the docks. The sun was splashing its final lingering dashes of color into the sky, and the sea was throwing back the city lights in a way that might have been romantic if Cobb could get out of his head the idea that the ocean was an excellent place to dispose of a troublesome architect. They pulled into a small garage, the door opened and someone started dragging Cobb out by his jacket collar. He was being tugged just fast enough to keep him from gaining his balance, and was thrown unceremoniously into a folding chair. As he rearranged himself into it a man came in from the opposite door. He was older, with white slacks and a Hawaiian shirt that opened up at the top to let out a profusion of blond chest hair. He strode up to Cobb until he was just out of kicking distance.

“Mr. Cobb.” His accent was thick and German, and he was looking down at Cobb in unmasked satisfaction. “You have given us the runaround, but you see it was useless struggle.”

“And you are?”

“You can call me Mr. Busch. I believe you were part of an extraction team that managed to obtain information from the mind of a man named Dennis Chagal?”

That had been Cobb's first job as dream thief. He had built the level, guided everyone through the run through, and then sat for thirty minutes sweating bullets and staring at the sleeping mark, trying by sheer force of psychic will to keep Chagal from waking up before schedule. The moment when the other team members opened their eyes and started packing up without the mark having stirred an inch was akin to that moment when a pendulum comes down in front of you and you can feel the air tickle your nose as the blade swings by.

“Tell me what you discovered,” Busch was continuing. “What new drug is Vadet Industries going to reveal to the world this spring?”

What was the right response to this question? Bluff? Confess? Stall? Stay silent? Cobb could see the muscle from the back seat just out of the corner of his eye, poised and waiting for when he made the wrong choice. As best he could tell, every choice was the wrong choice. His body was shaking. He could feel it. But he had to stay calm. This Mr. Busch hadn't seen fit to restrain him yet, but that could easily change. He had to find some way to keep his options open and get the word out that he was trouble, but he could barely think past the recollection of the argument he had had with Arthur earlier in the day. He was a threat, and people like Busch didn't let threats go. They shot you in the head and dumped you into the ocean.

“A little tongue tied? Maybe my friend here can loosen it up?”

The man from the town car took a step forward, and it was everything Cobb could do to keep from jumping out of his seat. A vision of his broken body sinking into the Atlantic flashed before his eyes.

“I don't have that information,” he blurted out.

The frown that Mr. Busch gave him said he had made the wrong choice. Cobb added quickly, “I can get it for you though.”

“And how can you do that?”

“Same way we got it the first time.”

The frown was still not gone, but Busch seemed to be considering what Cobb was suggesting.

“You will need someone who knows.”

“I have someone.”

Busch was smiling again, and the man at Cobb's side was backing away and giving him room to breathe. Cobb forced himself to relax back into the chair.

“Who is this person?” asked Busch.

“Someone who was on the same job. He went under, so it's likely that he has what you want. I'd just need access to him and my PASIV, and I can find out what we learned, no problem.”

Busch scoffed. “So quick to sell out your friend, Mr. Cobb?”

“I don't want to die.” It was the truth, and the tremble in Cobb's voice could attest to it.

“That is very smart of you,” said Busch. “Where is your friend now?”

“I'm not sure, but I can contact him and ask to meet somewhere. We've kept in touch.”

It was risky. If whoever had told Busch how to find Cobb had also told him about Arthur, Cobb's deception would be immediately apparent, but Busch seemed to accept Cobb's explanation. He simply nodded and said, “Call him and find out where he is. We will send some men to pick him up.”

“I hope they're more competent than the ones you sent to get me.”

Busch barked out a short laugh that did nothing to calm Cobb's nerves. “I will take care of that part. Call him. And if I suspect you are trying to cross me you will regret it.”

Arthur picked up at the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Arthur? It's me, Cobb.”

The familiar irritation in Arthur's voice when he replied, “I have caller ID, Cobb,” was almost enough to convince him that Arthur had no idea about the predicament that Cobb now found himself in, but Busch was watching him closely. He just had to hope that Arthur caught on to his hints and didn't get him killed.

“Right, well, I was planning on leaving town in a day or so. I was wondering if you wanted to meet for drinks before we parted ways.”

“That sounds...fine.” Arthur's reply this time was slower and more cautious. Cobb flinched at it, but Busch showed no reaction.

“Does the bar at your hotel work? You're still around... uh... San Miguel?” It was the furthest neighborhood Cobb could think of. The further out they sent Busch's men, the less likely they would be around when Arthur showed up. If Arthur showed up. He could hear the faint sound of typing coming from the phone. Surely Busch would be suspicious of it. Cobb ran his hand over his hair and when he pulled it away his palm was soaked in sweat.

“Yeah, Hotel Playa. You know how to get here? Where are you coming from?”

Cobb looked to Busch, who put a finger to his lips and shook his head, so instead of saying something like, “Oh, I don't know, a garage by the docks, and by the way, I am in mortal danger,” he opted to use the hotel they were staying at. It couldn't have been more than a few miles difference anyhow.

“All right, when can I expect you?”

“About an hour. I'll have to swing by my hotel and grab a few things.” Busch frowned at him for that, but kept his mouth shut.

“All right. See you then.” When Arthur cut the connection Cobb continued staring at the phone, blood pounding in his ears. The only thing he could do now was trust that Arthur had understood what Cobb was telling him. He told himself that Arthur had. After all, knowing what Cobb was saying without Cobb having to say it was one of the things that made Arthur the best. He didn't realize how hard he was clenching the phone until Busch walked up and tried plucking it from his hand. It was his only connection to possible rescue, and Cobb had to will himself to loosen his grip enough for the other man to take it. The muscle was on a walkie talkie, giving orders in a mix of German and English. Three men to the decoy hotel to pick up Arthur, and one to swing by Cobb's hotel for the PASIV. That part had gone right at least. If Arthur was ready for him, the one man would be walking into a trap, and the other three would hopefully be an hour away before they realized they'd been had. There was nothing left to do but wait.

Busch found himself a seat and settled down. “You have been very cooperative with us. If you obtain for me Vadet Industry's plans, I will let you and your friend go and we will part as associates.”

“I appreciate that,” Cobb mumbled.

“But if you fail, or you try something against me, you will regret it very much.”

Cobb glanced at the muscle, who grinned down at him.

“You have children, yes, back in America?”

The mere mention of his children by this man made Cobb go cold. Busch was waiting for a reply, so he nodded.

“They are doing well?”

“Yes.”

“That is good. I hear you do not have access to them.” He smiled. “But other people do have access to them. My friend Ozman here. He is American. And he would not be arrested at customs.”

The fear that Cobb had been struggling against for the past half hour dissolved, burned away by a steady calm and a focused hatred of the man in front of him.

“Are you threatening my children?”

Busch shrugged. “If you do what I ask, there is no need for the unpleasantness.”

The room fell into silence after that. Busch picked at his nails while Cobb fantasized about ripping his head off. The guard at Cobb's side, Ozman, remained a stoic gorilla.

Some fifteen minutes later a muffled shout broke into the quiet. The walkie talkie at Ozman's side cackled to life, and as he lifted it to his ear Cobb strained to make something out through the static. He heard a name he didn't recognize, and something about a neck. Broken? A thrill of hope rushed through him, but Cobb kept his expression set in nervous concern. Then there was more shouting, and the staccato pop of a gun firing, and Cobb had to stifle a shout of joy. Busch and Ozman, on the other hand, were looking visibly upset. Busch had backed away from the door as Ozman came forward, drawing a gun and talking into the walkie talkie with a tense voice. Their attention was focused on the door, and the sounds of shouting and shooting behind it, so much so that both the men had turned their backs on Cobb. If he was going to do something, it had to be now.

There was a large pair of bolt cutters next to a toolbox that Cobb had noticed almost as soon as he had been dragged into the garage. Cobb swallowed, braced himself, and lunged out of the chair. The movement almost immediately grabbed the attention of Ozman, but before the larger man could turn around Cobb was swinging the bolt cutters at his head with all the force he could muster. They made contact with a dull crack. Blood speckled Cobb's face as Ozman crumpled, and before he had hit the floor Cobb was diving for the gun that had fallen out of his hands. Busch had finally noticed what was happening behind him, and was stumbling back, grabbing at the gun under his jacket. Cobb's hand wrapped around the butt of Ozman's gun as he landed on his side on the ground. He threw the gun up, fired once. The shot went wild and ricocheted off a metal shelf. Ozman flinched at the sound, gave up on drawing his weapon in favor of running to the cover of the car, but Cobb had gathered his wits and aimed the second shot. He fired, and Ozman shouted in pain as he stumbled down and skid on the concrete.

His gun aimed at Busch's prone form, Cobb crept forward. The noise in the other room had tapered off to only a few voices and the occasional raport of a gun. Busch was lying flat on the ground, groaning, his arms tucked under his stomach in a futile attempt to hold back the pool of blood that was spilling out of him. Dispassionately Cobb considered Busch's chances of survival. It was possible that he would survive, if an ambulance found him quickly enough and the wound was not too critical. He leveled the gun at Busch's head. The older man couldn't see him, face down to the floor like it was, but he seemed to sense Cobb anyway and went still and quiet. If Cobb left him here, like this, maybe he would live.

“You threatened my children.”

The older man's response was drowned out by Cobb's shot. He looked only long enough to confirm that Busch was dead, and then retrieved Ozman's walkie talkie and turned it on.

“Arthur?”

In the other room a scream cut short almost as quickly as it had sounded. A moment later the walkie talkie came to life.

“Cobb. Where are you?”

“The garage.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. I... took care of it.”

“Roger. I'll be right there.”

When Arthur walked into the garage soon after, his jacket gone, his shirt torn and bloody, and his tie loose around his neck, Cobb was certain that he had never seen a more comforting sight in his entire life. Arthur gave Cobb only a glance before moving to inspect the two bodies in the room. Busch was dead, and Ozman's head was so destroyed from Cobb's blow that it seemed a mercy when Arthur put a bullet through it. Once he was certain that no one would be jumping out of the shadows on them Arthur turned to Cobb.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.”

Arthur gave him a doubtful look. “Let's get out of here.”

They took the town car, which was an excellent decision, considering the fact that by the time Cobb had made it to the passenger seat he could no longer feel his legs and his entire body was shivering like someone had just thrown a bucket of ice water over him. Arthur was throwing him concerned glances every few seconds, so he knotted his fingers together in an attempt to still his hands, but all that did was cause his leg to start tapping frantically.

“You've never killed someone before,” Arthur said. His voice was soft.

“I didn't think I had it in me.”

“You did what you had to. It was you or them, and you didn't owe them your life. You do what you have to, Cobb.”

Cobb nodded. He had done what he had to. The mere thought of a man like Busch getting a hand on his children made him sick. He couldn't have taken that chance, couldn't have risked his children's lives.

“I'm changing our itinerary. We're getting out now.”

“The documents?”

“Eames is finishing them up. We couldn't leave all that stuff unguarded anyway.”

“What if you had needed him?”

Arthur scoffed. “You insult me.”

Cobb returned Arthur's smirk, but mention of Eames got him thinking. Someone had to have told Busch where Cobb was. Someone had to have told him that he had worked on the Vadet job, and the more Cobb thought about it, the more he saw Eames' request for coffee as a calculated step to push Cobb out in the open. He half expected Eames to be gone when they returned, and whatever documents he had promised gone with him.

But when Arthur knocked on the hotel room door Eames opened it and let the two men inside. The room looked like it had before Eames had converted it into a makeshift laboratory. The bed was neat, and the bathroom was clean, although the smell of cleaning fluid could only mask the stench of ink and glue so much.

“That was fast,” said Eames, giving Cobb a once over. “And unharmed too? Well done.”

Cobb gave Eames a mirthless smile. “Are you underestimating me?”

“Never. Your papers are on the table there.”

Arthur excused himself to clean up the second room and Cobb flipped through his new passport. To his untrained eye it looked completely authentic. There were even a few arrival and departure stamps  
scattered through the pages, and a visa to Malaysia pasted in. Eames had his back to him, checking through the drawers one last time for any remnants of their visit. In a few minutes he would most likely be gone and Cobb would be left with nothing but questions and a passport that could very well get him arrested at the airport if Eames was as untrustworthy as he seemed. Paranoia was not an acceptable state of mind, Cobb decided. He was going to get his answers now. All of them.

Eames pushed the last drawer back in and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Well, it's been fun, but if you don't mind I'm going to pick up my envelope from Arthur and... Cobb?”

Cobb had pulled out the gun he had taken from Ozman and was pointing it at Eames' head. Eames was frowning at him, too calm for a man who had just been found out maybe, but he was a forger, an actor. There was no telling.

“I have some questions for you Eames.”

“All right,” Eames said, his voice low and placating. “No need for the gun. How about you put that down.”

“What are you doing in Buenos Aires? You expect me to believe you were just in the neighborhood? You expect me to believe it's a coincidence Busch found me right after Arthur brought you here?”

Realization was hitting Eames' face, and he pulled his hands out of his pocket slowly to hold them up. “You've got the wrong idea here.”

“'Get me a coffee.' Very smart Eames.”

“I'm telling you, Cobb...”

Cobb jerked the gun forward and Eames froze. Only his eyes moved, darting back and forth between Cobb's face and the barrel of the gun.

“How much was Busch paying you?”

“Nothing. I had no part-”

“He threatened my children, Eames.”

“I had no part in it. Put the gun down, for God's sake.”

“You lying sack of-”

“Put the gun down Cobb.”

\---

Cobb froze. It was Arthur's voice behind him, calm and even, but he could feel the tip of a gun pressing lightly between his shoulders. Arthur would never point a gun at him. He must have been taken captive by someone lurking in the other room. But then the touch between his shoulder blades lifted and Arthur stepped into Cobb's field of vision, gun in hand and pointed straight at him. Never point at what you don't intend to shoot, Arthur had told him, and unlike Cobb Arthur always followed his own advice.

The bottom dropped out of Cobb's stomach.

“Dom.”

“Don't even. I can't believe this. Arthur, what the hell are you doing?”

“I can explain everything.”

“If you don't, I will,” interjected Eames.

“Shut up, Eames,” growled back Arthur.

Cobb's attention was on Arthur. His point man, his friend, the only steady thing in his entire life up until that moment, pointing a gun at him, and for what? A nosy Brit who had sold him out? It didn't matter that Arthur looked more upset than he had seen him since Mal had died. The direction his gun was pointing said it all. He had been betrayed.

“You think Eames was the mole. He's not. You have to trust me in this.”

“Trust you.”

Arthur nodded.

“You're pointing a gun at me and you want me to trust you.”

“You need to calm down. Eames is unarmed. Aren't you Eames?”

Eames nodded, still watching Cobb's gun.

“Calm down? I almost died, it is someone's fault, and you want me to calm down?”

“Dom, I'm asking you to lower your weapon.”

Arthur was tensing. If Cobb made a sudden movement now he had no doubt that Arthur would shoot.

“Lower yours first.”

Arthur glanced at Eames before replying. “Alright. But if you shoot him, I can guarantee you'll be dead before you have a chance to turn on me. Understood?”

No, Cobb didn't understand. Arthur was his friend. His right hand man. What possible reason could have for turning on Cobb so suddenly?

“You'd really choose him over me?”

Arthur looked at Eames, Eames looked at Arthur, and again Cobb felt the awkward sense that there was something floating in the room that he could feel but not define.

When Arthur's answer came, it was almost a whisper.

“I would.”

Eames smiled at Arthur. It wasn't the triumphant smirk that Cobb had been expecting. It was soft, affectionate. It was...

“Oh, for the love of God.”

Both men glanced at Cobb, as if they had just then remembered that he was even in the room. It was so obvious now that Cobb realized he had been a complete fool to miss it.

“How long has this been going on?”

Arthur turned red as Eames said, “How about you put that gun down, and we'll tell you everything.”

Cobb lowered his gun and tucked it away. Arthur did the same as Eames exhaled loudly and collapsed onto the bed. Unsure of whether to be amused, furious, or put out that it had taken the threat of murder to get to the bottom of things, Cobb opted for a cocktail of all three. He crossed his arms and looked between the two men in front of him.

“So, how long?”

“About ten years,” replied Arthur.

“May of '01, in Philadelphia,” added Eames.

“And so, what, this has been going on ever since?”

Arthur said no at the same time Eames said yes. The both looked at each other, and this time Cobb could immediately define the feeling that filled the room. It was the same feeling that would permeate the air when he and Mal had some small, insignificant argument and then spent the rest of the day shooting verbal needles at each other.

“It never really ended, you know,” said Eames.

“You refused to accept that it had ended. There's a difference,” shot back Arthur.

“Obviously it has started up again,” said Cobb. If he had sounded amused when he said it, well, he was just coming down from a very high stress situation and could afford to be mildly hysterical still.

Arthur turned redder. “It's not... exactly what you think.”

“I don't care what it is. Someone tipped Busch off to my whereabouts, and all signs point to Eames.”

“It wasn't him.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don't know.”

“But it wasn't him.”

“Look, just give me a few days. I'll do some work, find out who sold you out, and take care of him.”

“And why should I believe you? You obviously didn't see fit to tell me about this,” Cobb waved his hand between the two men in front of him. “So why should put myself in your hands now?”

“He was just embarrassed,” said Eames.

“Of what? You thought I wouldn't... approve or something?”

“No, it wasn't that.”

“Wasn't just that.”

“Eames. If you do not shut up I will shoot you myself.”

“Arthur, if you do not start talking I will tell Cobb _all_ of your dirty secrets.”

Arthur rubbed his face vigorously with his hand and then sat down next to Eames, close enough that their thighs were almost touching. “I'm sorry. If I had known that you were suspecting Eames I would have cleared everything up immediately. I thought you were just annoyed at him for being his usual jealous self.”

“Careful there,” said Eames, and jostled Arthur with his shoulder. Arthur shot him a dangerous look in return that would have made Cobb freeze in his tracks, but Eames only grinned and did it again.

Cobb rolled his eyes. “Are you going to come clean then or what?

Arthur considered Cobb a moment before starting up in the disinterested voice he used for debriefings. “All right. Fine. We met ten years ago, working a job together. This was all back when I was running around like an A-list criminal, before the arrest and everything. The thing is, you don't show any weakness in our line of work. You bare one soft spot and that's where they aim the dagger, so we kept things quiet. We'd only admit that we even knew each other in the presence of mutual acquaintances. Most of the time, if we ended up on the same jobs we'd introduce ourselves and play at being strangers.

“And then, after the arrest an the plea bargain, I removed myself completely from everything that had a whiff of my old life.”

“Including Eames?”

Arthur nodded. “I wanted a shot at going straight.”

Eames snorted and Arthur shot him a glare. “That is not what I meant.”

Cobb could feel another spat boiling up, so he nodded and said, “Keep going.”

“There's not much else to say. We kept in touch just enough not to lose each other completely, but when we met Eames at that conference that was the first time I had seen him in...”

“Five years,” Eames offered.

“Five years,” Arthur repeated.

“And you couldn't tell me any of this, why?”

Arthur shrugged. “We just fell into the old routine. And... I figured you wouldn't care, but I couldn't be sure.”

Eames gave Cobb a look that clearly said, “I told you so.”

Cobb pinched the bridge of his nose. “Arthur.”

“I didn't want to take a stupid, meaningless risk.”

“But you were willing to shoot me.”

The hurt look Arthur gave him made him regret it immediately. “I'm sorry. I thought you were going to shoot him.”

“Yeah well.” If Arthur hadn't shown up when he did Cobb probably would have pulled the trigger, but there was no point in bringing that up.

Eames, who had been doing an admirable job at keeping himself quiet, gave his knees a pat and made to stand. “Well, now that that's all sorted out you have a plane to catch.”

“Now, wait a minute. Just because I believe Arthur doesn't mean I trust you.”

Eames raised a brow. “You still think I ratted you out?”

“I'm sure you can see why. Now that I know what I know, it makes even more sense, doesn't it? You want me out of the picture, Eames?”

Eames shook his head. “I may think that Arthur is a fool for putting his neck out for you, but you're not competition, trust me.” Arthur rolled his eyes.

“Even so, Arthur hasn't seen you in years. I don't know you at all. Why should I believe he isn't blinded by whatever it was you two had before and refuses to see the obvious?”

“Have you ever known Arthur to be anything but deadly realistic?”

“No, but then again I've never known him to be in love either.”

The the look Arthur gave him for that was a mix of indignation and pure embarrassment. A part of Cobb, a large part, found this to be extremely amusing.

“I'll find out who the mole was, and we'll deal with it,” Arthur insisted.

“And if you find out the mole was Eames?”

Arthur turned to look at Eames, and this time the forger did stiffen a little. “Then he's a dead man.”

“But for now you trust him.”

“I do.”

That was enough. Cobb could unpack this conversation later, but for now he had to trust Arthur, and Arthur trusted Eames. He considered Arthur, still looking tussled from Cobb's rescue, shirt splattered with blood that was certainly not his, looking as dangerous as he ever did. And yet at the same time he looked softer, with his knee touching Eames' and the ghost of a nervous, tentative expression still shadowing his face. Something had shifted between them, as if they had grown closer and further apart at the same time. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

“All right. I'm going to check the room next door. I'll be back in ten minutes, and then we go.”

“There's a guy in the closet, just so you know.”

Cobb laughed. “Of course there is.”

The other hotel room was completely empty. Cobb opted to keep the closet door closed. He didn't feel up to peeking in and adding another mental notch to Arthur's body count for the night. With nothing else to do but wait for Eames and Arthur to say their goodbyes, Cobb settled into the bed and concentrated on coming down from the emotional roller coaster he had just been dragged through. He'd have to see to the children. Find some way to make sure that they were being watched and protected. And he'd have to learn to shoot. Arthur had mentioned it before, but he had waved the suggestion away in the hope that the skill would never be useful. He saw now the folly of such ignorance. He was lucky really. He had learned a number of lessons that night, and had survived them all relatively unharmed. The nervousness and the paranoia were already fading, and replacing it all was a steely determination. This was all just a temporary stop through to a path back to his children. Cobb would survive this, and he would do what he needed, whatever he needed, to leave this life behind and return to a world where the most he had to worry about was whether James was trying to paint the hallway with peanut butter again.

He waited exactly ten minutes before picking himself up and returning to Eames' room. Eames had disappeared, and Arthur was standing in the foyer, luggage in hand. He held out Cobb's bag. Cobb took it.

“Ready?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah.”

\---

There was thirty minutes before their flight. Nothing was visible outside but the lights of the takeoff strips and the planes rolling back and forth across the tarmac. There had been no trouble at the gate, and the attendant had barely given Cobb's passport a glance before waving him through. He was sitting in a seat he had decided was specifically designed to be as uncomfortable as possible and nursing a cup of coffee that Arthur had handed him a minute ago. Arthur was next to him, jacket slung over the chair between them, sipping on his own cup. They were silent together, just as they had been silent in each other's presence since everything had started, but this time it didn't feel like a black hole was sitting between them and trying to pull Cobb's guts out of his body. This silence was comfortable, and Cobb reveled in it.

“You know, Eames was the one who realized you'd been grabbed.”

Cobb raised a brow and looked askance at Arthur, who took a sip of his coffee and kept his eyes on the takeoff strip out the window.

“He came barging through the door so fast I almost shot him, said he had heard you shouting.”

“Had you been sleeping?”

Arthur shrugged. “You told me to get some sleep.”

“You are something else, Arthur.”

Arthur glanced at Cobb and flashed him a smirk. “You should probably thank him for saving your life next time you see him.”

“I guess I'll have to. Anything else you want to share?”

“I really didn't think you'd have a problem with it.”

“I don't. But really, Eames? I thought you had taste.”

Arthur's smirk broke into a grin, and he shook his head. “I thought I did too.”

The attendant began to announce boarding in a quick succession of world languages. They gathered their things and joined the sparse line forming at the gate, and as Cobb handed over his ticket and was waved along without fuss he felt that for the first time the future held the possibility of happiness for him.

\---

It was a few minutes past midnight when Eames arrived at Joseph's cottage. He had left his bike a few miles down the road and trekked the rest of the way, using night vision goggles to find his way through the pitch black until the pinprick of a light in the window could guide him. He paused a few feet away to attach the silencer to his pistol, and then snuck through the back door, taking his time with every step, summoning up the memory of every creaky board as he made his way through the small bedroom, keeping his body out of the light spilling out of the doorway. He could hear Joseph moving around at the counter. The air was heavy with the smell of freshly ground coffee, and Eames could see piles of paper littering the kitchen table.

Joseph was pouring his coffee into a mug when Eames slipped into the room and settled himself into a chair, his gun resting lightly on the table and pointed at Joseph's back.

“Evening, Joe.”

Joseph froze, then turned around slowly. His eyes fell on the gun in Eames' hand as if he had been expecting it.

“Eames. I did not think you would be the one showing up.”

“Oh? Who were you expecting?”

“Cobb's little friend.”

“I don't think Arthur would appreciate you calling him little.”

Joseph shrugged. “If you are here to kill me, let us drop the pretension and be done with it.”

“Why don't you have a seat?”

Joseph shook his head. He was standing ramrod straight, his chin up like a rebel before a firing squad. “I want you to be done with it.”

Eames sighed. “How long have we known each other?” When Joseph said nothing he supplied the answer himself. “Four years? How many times have we worked together? A dozen or so yeah? You remember the job in '08? The one where I got cornered and you managed to lead me out of the building in broad daylight?”

Joseph nodded, his expression had lost the conviction of a man facing down imminent death, and now he was looking at Eames warily.

“You want to know why it's me here and not Arthur? Because I owed you a big one, and this is me paying you back. Arthur wanted to scatter you across Europe. I convinced him that you had already seen the error of your ways. You have haven't you?”

“It was a stupid mistake,” agreed Joseph. “Cobb, he was a nobody. How was I supposed to know there would be backlash?”

“You have obviously gone senile in your old age if that's your excuse. You should have known better than to betray a colleague, and to a corporation so pitiful it couldn't even afford a proper extraction, no less. I think it's time you retired, and you'll find that the rest of the network agrees with me. You're blacklisted Joe. I suggest you pick yourself a nice tropical island and disappear.”

“Then you won't kill me.”

Eames shook his head. “Not this time. But you try anything like this again and I will not hesitate. Have I made myself clear?”

Joseph nodded. Eames picked himself up from the chair and moved towards the bedroom, the gun trained on Joseph the entire way. He was halfway obscured by the sharp shadows of the doorway when he paused. “Good evening Joe. Enjoy your coffee.”

Ten seconds past the moment Joseph heard the back door pater quietly shut he sunk down to his knees, where he remained until the grey line of dawn began creeping towards him on the floor.


End file.
